The Wizard of Oz School of DMing

[Sebastian Francis]

Once you know the general guidelines and you don't stretch yourself too thin (ie you don't use up more feats that a character could have etc) you can really make a lot of stuff up. The NPC is in the middle and you want him to do a whirlwind attack? That's 5 feats, A 10th level fighter is going to have about 7 feats. If he hasn't shown more than 2 feats, then whirlwind away (but then remember you are running low on feats).

This is not adlibbing. Adlibbing is saying,

"The fighter attacks you with a mighty whirlwind strike!"

and saying, "To hell with whether he should have 7 or 5 or 40,000 feats."

If your players like adventure, they'll love it. If they're wargaming, meta-gaming, rules-lawyers, they'll hate it. So as has already been said, it depends on the players and the DM.

 

[Sebastian Francis]

Why cant a mindflayer have bat wings? with a quick thought you can change the entire species. Why cant all Goblins have 50 hp? It will frustrate your players who read the MM - and I love changing monsters stats and descriptions to confuse my players.

Oh, I agree...my point was simply that without some sort of internal consistency, the world falls apart. If you're playing Ravenloft, for example, you can't have dragons hiding around every corner...*unless* you've established that dragons are a part of *your* Ravenloft.

 

[Sammael]

But you're missing the point. The entire scenario you just detailed *isn't* adlibbed.

Actually, you are missing the point. The point was that you cannot ad-lib a complex scenario and maintain a semblance of balance, no matter how well you know the rules.

Ad-libbing is all fine and well for marginal encounters and times when the PCs stray off the planned path, but using it more than that falls into the "lazy DMing" category.

 

[barsoomcore]

Ad-libbing is essentially "DM Fiat" -- any thing DM wants to have happen, happens. You can TRY and keep things within a "reasonable" scope, but since you get to define "reasonable" it's still 100% your ball game. With ad-libbing the DM always gets whatever the DM wants.

This is a perfectly fine way to play. If your players don't know they're playing "DM Fiat", however, there can be some annoyance if they find out you've just been making up their opponents' abilities and so on. If they don't have huge amounts of trust in you, they may suspect you of rigging encounters either to guarantee failure or success, and either way a portion of their fun can be gone, if to them part of the fun is facing the challenges you've designed and coming up with solutions to meet them. If they feel like you're altering the conditions of the challenge on the fly, they'll feel like their cleverness has less to do with their success or failure than your desires. Which for lots of people is less fun.

I suspect most games in most campaigns have a certain degree of ad-libbing -- it's impossible to avoid since you can never predict what your players are going to do. I find it VERY difficult to, for example, ad-lib high-level spellcasters -- there's HUNDREDS of spells they MIGHT have and deciding on the spot which one they cast and what effect it has is beyond me. Likewise, I don't know off-hand all the powers of a powerful demon or devil, and would very much want a stat block in front of me before throwing something like that at my players.

Sometimes you just make it up and just decide what happens. Take them down a bunch of hit points, make them feel like they're really working for it, but let them kill the BBEG in the end. Sure, that happens.

And there's a certain satisfaction in pulling a grand climax right out of your butt and taking your players for a thrilling ride using nothing but your imagination.

And for some players, that's HUGE fun, even if they (or especially if they) know it's been ad-libbed. Having fun making up stories together is a big part of D&D, and who cares HOW that happens as long as everyone is having fun?

Inna final analysis, it doesn't matter as long as you and your players are having fun. If you're secretly ad-libbing, though, I would caution you to get a hold of the reins and apply a little discipline, before your players surprise you with how seriously they take fairness.

 

[Sejs]

I just ran a session which included an encounter with a 15th level necromancer, three of his 10th level apprentices, a 10th level guard, four 6th level guards, three clerics (who were mostly inconsequential, but managed to summon a weak manifestation of their deity for a second) and two mummies. The entire 8x8 room the encounter took place in had forbiddance and unhallow cast, and contained a pool of unholy water, as well as lots of cover. Oh yeah, the party had 6 11th-12th level characters, four of which are full spellcasters. Would anybody care to ad-lib it?

Jebus! 20 people, a pool of unholy water, and "lots of cover" in an 8 foot by 8 foot room?

Talk about crowded.

 

[Sammael]

8x8 squares, of course. Still, it was pretty crowded.

 

[Orius]

The problem with the "Wizard of Oz" School of DMing is that you get munchkins.


I can hardly believe I'm the first with that joke.

Damn, you beat me to it.

 

[Nail]

But this is the danger of doing it the Oz way: DM powertripping.

This is it, in a nutshell. Good job, Gneech!

 

[mmadsen]

Which got me thinking--why the *hell* am I busting my ass writing up countless stat sheets for various monsters and NPCs for my regular gaming group?

I think you've made the case for a game with fewer rigid interdependencies between game stats.

 

[Ozmar]

I just ran a session which included an encounter with a 15th level necromancer, three of his 10th level apprentices, a 10th level guard, four 6th level guards, three clerics (who were mostly inconsequential, but managed to summon a weak manifestation of their deity for a second) and two mummies. The entire 8x8 room the encounter took place in had forbiddance and unhallow cast, and contained a pool of unholy water, as well as lots of cover. Oh yeah, the party had 6 11th-12th level characters, four of which are full spellcasters. Would anybody care to ad-lib it?

I could ad-lib it, but I'd really prefer to work out the stats and strategies in advance.

Ad-libbing is a necessary GM skill, but like almost all GM skills, should never be used exclusively. GMs should be prepared with as much data as feasable. That allows them to be prepared to ad-lib more effectively when necessary.

Ozmar the Believer in Preparation